It's Official: (The Slobfather's) 'Impenetrable' Border Wall Is An Expensive Failure

[malaise]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-border-wall-failure_n_622076e7e4b0a7b54cd9956d


Former President Donald Trump promised his supporters an “impenetrable” border wall between the United States and Mexico. Instead, the $15 billion wall was reportedly breached thousands of times in areas where it was completed, and the smugglers who cut through it were able to do so with cheap power tools available in retail stores.

Unpublished data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection obtained via the Freedom of Information Act showed that Mexican smugglers cut through the wall 3,272 times over three years, according to The Washington Post. In some cases, they replaced the areas they cut with tinted putty, essentially creating secret passages.

“You have to look really closely to see it,” one source told the newspaper.


Mexico did not pay for it. U.S. taxpayers did.

[Ohio Joe]

1. It's kind of a shame...

That we had to wait for it to officially be a failure when so many could see that it would be from the start. All that money could have been used for something productive.

[Wicked Blue]

2. At least some of his private contributers lost money

Silver lining

[Ziggysmom]

3. And now we have to pay to remove or repair this giant catastrophe!

[maxsolomon]

6. Just pitiful engineering.

I'm shocked the Corp approved the design.

[jmowreader]

10. How do you know they did?

This looks like a “colonel, sign this paper without reading it or we’ll sign it for you” kind of deal.

[maxsolomon]

20. I don't.

Fair point.

[panader0]

8. The Mexican people are cutting the fence to use the steel for other things.

There's a few miles of the fence near me. When I viewed it from Coronado Peak near the border,
it was an ugly mess with construction scars all over the ground. Just a few miles away where there
was no fence the border area was quite pretty with thick oak trees on both sides. I've lived here
ten miles from Mexico for over forty years and the number of crossers has been very low for a long
time, long before the fence.

[Hekate]

16. Given how much I hate Trump, I totally approve

[panader0]

17. Almost any other usage of the steel would be better than the fence.

The Border Patrol nixed the idea of a wall, saying they could not see through it. So a mild steel
fence with big spaces between the bars was chosen. What a joke. Consider the source.
Mild steel definition: https://www.servicesteel.org/resources/carbon-vs-mild-steel

[malaise]

25. Ah well

No surprise

[malaise]

26. Ah well

No surprise

[smirkymonkey]

21. Brilliant design.

Well worth the money.

[Irish_Dem]

4. It probably was just another Trump grift.

How many federal dollars ended up in his pocket?

[agingdem]

5. I live on the border...

in fact, I-10 skirts the Rio Grande..Trump's hoards of "murderers and rapists" are, in fact desperate families running for their lives, determined to give their children a better life...and the "choice" jobs they're supposedly taking away from entitled white folks: digging ditches, cleaning toilets, washing dishes, carrying bricks...btw...I'm 73 years old and even I could breach that damn wall...

[Initech]

9. I remember when someone said they could cut through the "wall" with a cheap circular saw.

That you could get at Home Depot for like $100. The wall isn't doing anything to keep the US secure, it's just political theater brought to us by Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Alex Jones.

[panader0]

11. A cordless reciprocating saw from Harbor Freight is a favorite way to cut through.

I live near the border too, 10 miles. In nearby Nogales, teens can climb over in seconds, every day.

[underpants]

14. Harbor Freight is definitely the choice for one time usage

Maybe a project that you might get a few uses out of. I needed a sawzall to fix a drain pipe the day before Christmas. The guy at Lowes asked what I needed it for and said “You should really just go to Harbor Freight”. It still works 10 years later…I think.

[agingdem]

15. and I think of those ridiculous

GOP congress idiots like Ted Cruz, in boats (with a film crew), floating down the Rio Grande, insisting they spied drug cartels coming across the river...oh sure...drug cartels are notorious for doing business at midnight knowing the Washington morons are coming their way, and La Migra, in Chevy Suburbans, trolling the riverbanks just in case a Republican imbecile goes overboard..

[Irish_Dem]

18. Makes me think it was mostly grift. The wall is a joke.

Poorly built and the premise of bad people coming over was a lie.

[jmowreader]

12. Probably none

My opinion here is that Trump - at one point America’s biggest employer of illegal immigrants - was using this project to pay off his debts. “Mark up the price of what you’re selling us as much as you want. Apply half the overage to my tab.”

[Irish_Dem]

19. The same thing. He used the money for personal benefit.

[Initech]

7. I'm shocked, shocked! Well... not that shocked!

[underpants]

13. I made a ladder out if found 2x4s and duct tape

Third floor walk up. I was on the top floor so I made a ladder to go up on the roof. Good times.

[Achilleaze]

22. Everything the Republican goon touches turns to shit

[Grokenstein]

23. And what's the ecological cost of this scam?

Private property was seized for it, and IIRC nature reserves were also in the path of bulldozers before dim donnie and a compliant press walked away for it. Oddly enough, no heavily-armed gangs of sovereign citizens seemed to give a damn this time.

[malaise]

24. You nailed it

All a propaganda sham - the perfect grift.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

27. What a loser.

[Texasgal]

28. Walls and fences have never worked.

Texans are aware of that...well most Texans.. UGH.

There are thousands of miles that one cannot build walls or fences. Big Bend area is one of them!